At character creation can I simply ignore all my magic rating and not buy it and only buy cyberware? Or if I spend 4 points on cyber do I need to buy magic up and then lower it again?

For each point or partial point of Essence lost, you lose a point of Magic. Yes, you have to buy the Magic first, then lose points from it when you get cyberware and/or bioware. As a good rule of thumb, in SR4, it is usually not worth it to have more than 1, or at most 2 points of Essence loss from 'ware.

In SR3, it was easier. You could take geasa to offset the Magic loss from 'ware, a Power Focus added its rating directly to your Magic Attribute, and Magic actually didn't matter that much unless you were casting spells with a Force over your Magic rating (and you could take fetish or exclusive limitations to spells to lower their effective Force for Drain purposes, too).

In SR4, you can take geasa as negative qualities but they don't offset Magic loss, Power Foci only add bonus dice, fetish limitations to spells only add Drain resistance dice, and every point of Magic matters because it is part of your dice pool.

Even if I don't plan on actually starting with magic I have to buy it up? I can't decide to just have zero? Crappy...

if that's the case, you want latent awakening, quality found in street magic.

Yeah, that would fit that concept best. the GM decides how the character awakens, but you might be able to talk it over with your GM if you want to awaken as a specific type of character (mage, adept, etc.). When it happens, you start out with a Magic of 1, and your Essence loss only affects your maximum rating for Magic. You do have to spend Karma on the quality you get at the time, though (you have to buy the mage, adept, etc. quality).

If your Magic ever hits 0 (barring being pre-Latent Awakening), you forever lose your ability to do Magic.

DS

Take the Latent Awakening Quality (and leave enough BP available to buy your desired Awakened Quality minus 5, plus any BP required to raise Magic if desired), then after chargen is almost completed, in the 'Finishing Touches' section, declare that you have Awakened as a _______, and then proceed from there.

Or just handwave the stupid bullshit and just pay for the Magic points that you actually get, and rule that Essence Loss (at chargen) merely lowers your maximum Magic rating.

Wow..is that really THAT common a house rule? You know what I always believed when there is a House Rule everyone uses? "Why isn't it in the book?!" Actually, I am surprised the play testers did not catch that..Why? because, if you stop and think about it:

Your Maximum Magic is your Essence(rounded down)+Initiation Grades. So, I put in 1 point of Cyberware, my maximum Magic is 5. I raise my magic to 5, but then I lose 1 point of magic for the cyberware, so I pay the 55 points for Magic 5, but end up with Magic 4. I cannot have magic 5, because I cannot buy my magic to 6, because you cannot buy an attribute above its maximum. If you get 3 points of Cyberware on a mage by that rule, you are an automatic burn out at chargen, by the RAW.

I just automatically do things that way (which is basicaally just using the Latent Awakeneing rules) unless specifically directed not to do so. As far as I am concerned it is the only thing that makes sense. If needed, justification can be gained by looking at the way metahumans purchase their penalized Attributes in SR4. They are not made to pay an actually BP penalty, but instead have a lowered Attribute Maximum. In my opinion, it should work the very same way with Magic.

If you don't intend to play a mage, they you won't have any magic at all, and thus you won't lose any magic when your essence is reduced.

So if you don't plan on actually start with magic, then you don't have to buy it up.

It's only people who have a quality that gives them 1 point of magic, that will loose points of magic when essence is reduced.

If only that character creation rules was streamlined it wouldn't have been a problem.

According to the RAW you should do it it this order:
1) Choose metatype
2) Purchase attributes
3) Acquire skills
4) Qualities
5) Assigning resources
6) Finishing touches

But several qualities (4) will affect youre attributes (2) and your skills (3). Assigning resources (5) will also affect your attributes (2). And even the order with in "Assigning resources" will force your to go back in the sam section to change thing you have previously finished.

That section of the BBB should have been done in a much more streamlined way.

Lars

Weird. That's how we're doing it since the first read-through of the SR4 main book.

Wonder if Synner & Co. will inlcude that as an optional rule into the Compendium.

So you think it should have been:

1) Choose metatype
2) Qualities
3) Assigning resources
4) Purchase attributes
5) Acquire skills
6) Finishing touches

then? ....yeah, I can see that.

When I made my cybered SR4 shaman, I was under the impression that geasa still offset magic loss. It was a bit of a shock when we started playing, and I discovered my magic attribute was half what I thought it would be. Still, his geasa are awesome, so I can't complain too much.

I had wanted to houserule exactly what Fortune was saying, but the mundanes in the group shot it down. They're all new to SR, and this is my first SR4 game, so we decided we should keep houserules to a minimum until we're actually familiar with the system.

Er, Street Magic still lets you geas magic loss; you just don't take it as a Negative Quality. Check the section on crisis-es (crises?) of confidence, and acquiring geasea during play.

so basically it's a matter of whether or not "lost essence" comes off the 'top' or the 'bottom'?
top = reduces your maximum magic potential
bottom = automatically reduces the magic you have, or hampers it.

If any essence hit takes it off the top during play then it should also do it during chargen. I mean sure this will be the first time you play this character but it isn't the first day they were born.

right?

Essence (Magic) loss from implants cannot be Geased in SR4.

Why? Metahumans don't have to pay for their reduced Attributes at chargen. And in-game progression differs from chargen (Karma vs BP and graduated progression vs. flat cost).

my point was right after that
why should the rules change after they become PCs?

I answered that exact point, and even gave other examples of where the rules differ in implementation between chargen and in-game.

My problem is with paying for attributes that you don't get. Metahumans don't get reduced attributes at chargen, just reduced maximums. If you take magic up to 6 before knocking it down to 3, that's 45 BP you just blew on magic points you don't actually get.

I'm kind of glad to hear you can't geas magic loss from implants, though. If you could, and I took a hit on 3 points of magic for nothing, I'd be annoyed.

Is it time for another round of "Wah! Mages are too powerful because of (broken houserule)! How can I nerf them into unplaybility?" already?

Not from me.

Cardul brings up a point I hadn't thought of before.

If you have no cyber, and want a magic of 5, it is 40 BP. If instead you have e.g. 1 essence of cyber, that brings your maximum magic rating down to 5. If you want a magic of 5 at chargen, is that 40 BP or 55 BP? The later makes sense (although it double penalizes magicians at chargen, IMHO) but I don't think any of the chargen spreadsheets take this into account...

I would say a starting magic of 5 would be 40 points, because at the time you actually buy the 5 magic, your max. magic is still 6. It doesn't go down until you take the cyber.

If you reversed the order and bought cyber before you bought attributes, then yes, taking a magic of 5 would cost 55 pts. But in that case, I'd say you wouldn't have to buy magic up to 6 and then whittle it down to 5. You're doing something first. If you're going by RAW, then you're buying up to 6 (65 pts), and ending up with a 5 after your 1 pt. of cyber. If you houserule that you buy cyber first, it takes your max magic down to 5, and you have to pay 55 pts for that, but you already have the cyber. I think what Fortune was saying was that he houserules that you buy magic first, but cyber only takes down max. magic, so you could buy the 5 magic for 40 pts, then buy 1 pt of cyber without incurring any magic loss. So I think that covers both ends of the spectrum, and includes a middle way.

By the RAW, it'd be 65 points, not 55.

Starting magic 1, raised to magic 5 => (5-1)*10 = 40 bp
+
max rating point => 25 bp
losing a point due to cyber => -1 current AND -1 max magic, n/a bp
total = 65 bp.

Imo the way it is is pretty much ok, else you could make horribly evil cybered builds as the awakened qualities themselves are rather cheap and noone would play a mundane anymore.
Metahumans should have to pay for their weaker attributes as well tho imo.

Is that calculation for a max magic of 5? If so, the last point only costs 25, not the special price of 25 for being the max point PLUS the normal 10, right? So you'd be paying 10 per point for points 2-4 (30 pts), and then 25 for the last point. That would be 55, unless I'm wrong and you pay the 25 AND the 10 for that last point.

And if I am wrong, then I think my point stays the same, because you'd be making the same adjustment for the max rating of 6 (which would become 75 pts). And seriously, if I'm mathematically wrong, or wrong about the rules, point it out. I don't want to mess it up next time I make a character (I was trigger happy when I made my current character, and didn't thoroughly read the bit about buying foci at chargen--ended up with a Force 1 weapon focus, but paying BP to bind it similar to karma like you did with power points in SR2, screwing myself out of several BP)

His calculation is correct.
You spent 40 points to get the magic of 5.
Install <= 1 point of essense
Magic drops to 4, your new max is 5.
To raise it back to 5 will cost you 25 more BP, for a total of 65 BP
(He skipped some details, but his math was correct)

Buying to 6, with no Cyber is 65 BP as well.

Yes, to end with a rating of 5 while having cyber, you have to buy up to 6 first.

If you merely buy up to 5, you still lose a point, and will start play with a magic rating of 4 and a non-initiated max of 5.

I think maybe you misunderstood what I was originally saying. Whne I went back and reread your points we were basically saying the same thing, in different ways.

Whatever. You asked why things should work differently in the actual game than at chargen. I asked why shouldn't they work differently, and then gave a couple of examples of other things that were resolved in different manners in both chargen and in-game. I am having some difficulty understanding why it would be a problem to have differing rules in-game than at chargen. Especially when the game is already rife with such contradictions in progression.

No, I still charge the inflated 25 BP for that last Magic point (to reach the maximum), whether that be at 6, or 4, or 2.

My only change is that Essence loss (only at chargen) affects where the maximum Magic is set, not where the current Magic is set. Essence loss (at chargen only) reduces the character's maximum potential Magic, but doesn't actually make the character purchase Attribute points that they are not getting to use.

Metavariants aren't charged for their decreased attributes because that would be racist.

But metavariants do have costs on their actual metavariant, how these are calculated only the developers know. But perhaps (and highly likely) the baselines for the metavariants were figured in this. Magic is something a player takes as a choice and its interaction with cyberware is another option. If you take cyberware your magic is affected.

So rules as they stand make more sense. Magicians who take cyberware are penalized. If it didn't work this way, then anyone could pick up a magic quality to go with their cyberware. Afterall Spirit Knack, Spell Knack, Astral Sight, all these are 5 BP... Heck anyone can take adept for 5 BP and get a single point of adept powers. Thats why mages pay for their essense loss at the beginning, so that every cyber sammy doesn't back their equipment with adept powers for little price.

As do the awakened characters have a cost for their Magic. It is a dual-pronged cost at that, because not only do they have to pay BP for the privilege, but they have to use up a portion of their very limited 35 points in Positive Qualities as well, which is something metahumans do not need to do.




As is metahumanity, or any number of other factors.



Undoubtedly. I was never disputing that. My point is that, in my opinion, at chargen Essence loss should only affect the maximum Magic rating. During game play itself, the rules are fine as they are.



And yet we have Latent Awakening, which runs totally counter to the way Magic, Essence and Cyber interact under the normal rules. My proposed change (and it really isn't only mine) is to adapt the regular rules to fit in with the, in my opinion, much more sensible Latent Awakening rules.

My argument is that, since we know that Exceptional Attribute, shich comes after the purchase of the attribute changes the BP cost of the formerly hard capped, now soft-capped attribute, that that is the precedent that the reduction of Magic Maximum is also retro-active, because I believe things are applied uniformly. If one thing can increase the attribute maximum, and it changes the point cost retro-actively, then something that lowers the maximum also changes that point cost retro-actively.

So, if you get 1 point of Ware, using that logic, then you can not have a magic of 5 at Chargen. You will pay to raise your magic to its new maximum of 5(a total of 55 points), and then, you will lose that 1 point from your cyber-ware. You have already paid for 5 points, so you cannot re-raise the attribute from 5 to 4..and you hardcapped it at 5 originally, thanks to the reduction of your maximum to 5.

It doesn't work that way. You spend 65 points to get a Magic of 6, then lose an Essence point due to cyberware and/or bioware, dropping your Magic to 5. Since the maximum for your Magic is also lowered to 5, you will need to initiate if you want to raise your Magic back up to 6.


If you use Fortune's house rule, you apply the Essense reduction first, then look at the new maximum rating when determining the cost. So since 5 is the new maximum, you would pay 30 build points to get it to 4, then 25 more for the last point, for a total of 55 points.

Neg, you spend 65 points to get your magic to 6, you put in a point of ware, your magic maximum is reduced by 1, so you get 10 points back, since your magic has to drop to the new maximum, and then you lose that point of magic, so, your magic drops to 5(the maximum) as a result of the ware reducing your maximum(remember: you cannot purchas an attribute higher then its maximum), and THEN you lose the point of magic, reducing you to 4.

wha?

when making a char. at creation. say an adept (my fav) you buy a magic of 5. you put one essence point of cyber/bio into him. your magic drops to a 4 becouse your essence is now at 5.

for the example most people here are using its this. magic of 6 minuse 1 point of essence=magic of 5. you don't get 10 points back. you get nothing back. what you get is some neat upgrades for the cost of that magic point. say an adept with toner for more agi or something.

You would have to get the 10 points back, since your maximum dropped to 5, and so you could not have paid for a 6. And THEN your Magic drops by 1 to 4.

Cardul: It just does not work in the way you are describing. You only get penalized once. According to canon, for the example with a Magic of 6 and 1 Essence worth of cyber, you would pay the 65 BP for the Magic rating, which because of the 1 point of Essence loss would automatically become 5, which is now also the Magic Attribute maximum for that character. You paid for the maximum, you get the maximum, even though that maximum is now reduced by Essence loss.

The not-so-inconsiderable risk with Latent Awakening is that it lies solely in the hands of the GM. You could take the trait, play through an entire campaign and retire the character without the GM ever deciding that, OK, NOW it kicks in.

That is PISS POOR GMing. I can understand it in a Missions setting or something similar, but if you are going to run a campaign with a group of players and you see that on a character sheet, you owe it to the player to either make sure you include it in your game or advise them to spend those 5 points in another way. Roleplaying is a cooperative experience, not some dictatorship where the GM is supposed to tell their story and the players can go fly a kite. If that was the case, you would just have one guy sitting in a room rolling dice and talking to himself.

Fortune and Unpronounceable are coorect, it costs 65 build to have a 5 in magic and less than a 6 in Charisma.

As to the topic of the post, I have no problem witht he RAW on this. I think it is a major sacrifice for a Magic User to decide to disrupt the flow of mana/chi/power/soul/whatever through their body and should cost at least SOMETHING. Otherwise you get SR 3 where any mage was an idiot if they didn't spend at least 1 essence on augmentation. It's also a neat setting point. Sometimes what is optimal is unimportant. Life is not fair to those who shape the energy of the world to their whim.

No - absoultely refusing to allow latent to happen is bad GMing.

If the character never enters circumstances that justify that awakening to that GM...well, it happens. The GM also gets to decide what tradition you become.

Read the rules for latent awakening again - "the GM may" is repeated quite often. It is NOT a guarantee of magical power - it's a roleplaying hook. For instance, if a player chooses to take Pilot: suborbital, the GM is in no way obligated to give him one.

Yes a hook, as in something the player would like to explore with their character. In the interests of everyone feeling involved, it really ought to come into play. In fact, it's a GREAT quality because it does the work for you. If you as a GM wish to not run it the they should explain that to the player up front. The player can then decide if they want to keep the trait or not.

Same thing I would do for a player who put points into Pilot: Suborbital. First thing I would say is WHY?? The second would be, you know that's not going to happen, right??

Also, this is a cooperative game. The player did not sink 5 points into a Quality that they didn't wish to see to come to fruition, regardless of what the rules say on the matter. If you as a GM do not let your player know how you feel about the quality and your intentions for the game, then talk to them about it. No, it should not be a cheap way to get Magician, or Spirit Mentor or whatever, but it is a integral part of how the player wishes their character to develope. If you don't intend to use it, refund them the build. Its just poor GMing not to. But hey, it's your game, do what you (or your table) wants

Edit:: Also note, I'm not sure how it would be a good way to get anything because if you want it to be worth anything, you have to play a complete mundane up until the quality hits. When that happens, you have no magical skills whatsoever, don't know any spells and have a Magic Attribute of 1 so you can't have any cyber/bio or it's useless. So I think a player definately earns the awakening by surviving the time between creation and awakening without the typical aids

The really sad thing is it isn't a cheap way to get those qualities, though I expect a lot of folks would try to use it as such - by RAW, you get your karma docked for the 2x(bp cost -5) of the new quality, anyway (i.e. a sudden 20 karma hole for a full mage - ouch. And no magical skills, until you get to train. And no additional magical qualities, like a mentor spirit.) But you've pretty much hit the point there - you need to talk it over with the GM, in detail, first - like the ever-popular amnesia, it's not really something you should take for a pick-up game, or in a multiple-GM scenario. Possibly nice for a longer campaign though.

I have to agree, in my games, Essence Loss ALWAYS lowers your max cap in my games, even after Char Gen, but then again I also impose a hard cap on Magic as well.

I'm now kind of lost on what the heck the problem is here.

I think a RAW rule question thread turned into a "house-rule" thread.

Rules as written: You pay for the magic level you want, then apply essence loss to your current rating, lowering it by a full point for every point and fraction thereof of essence loss. (Pay for magic 6, take 1 point of essence loss, end up with magic 5. Total BP spent=65)

House rule 1: You pay for the magic rating you want, and then apply essence loss to the maximum rating, lowering your final rating as needed. (Pay for magic 5, get 1 point of essence loss, end up with magic 5 because your new maximum is 5 Total BP spent=40)

House rule 2: You recognize you want a magical character, and take your essence loss first. Apply this loss to your maximum, then buy up your magic, possibly saving a heapload of points. (Take 1 point of essence loss, reducing your maximum magic to 5. Then buy up magic to 5. Total BP spent=55)

I think that sums up the current direction of the thread